


The One Death Left Behind

by rebelmeg



Series: Rebelmeg's BBB 2020 [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Feels, Assassination, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are Different Personalities, Bucky Barnes Feels, Death, Gen, Introspection, Sarah Rogers Mentioned - Freeform, Steve Rogers mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26743999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelmeg/pseuds/rebelmeg
Summary: Bucky Barnes has had just about every kind of experience with death that there could possibly be.  Except one.
Series: Rebelmeg's BBB 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1687957
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23
Collections: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020, Winter's Snowflakes





	The One Death Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> This bit of sadness was inspired by [this amazing art](https://www.deviantart.com/min1919/art/Sleep-tight-539040463) done by min1919 on DeviantArt. It's one of several other works inspired by the same art, and in the group chat we've taken to calling ourselves [Winter's Snowflakes](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/WintersSnowflakes).
> 
> Additionally, this fits my BBB square B3 – “Dyin’ ain’t so bad.”
> 
> Title: The One Death Left Behind  
> Collaborator: rebelmeg  
> Square Filled: B3 – “Dyin’ ain’t so bad.”  
> Ship: none  
> Rating: Teen  
> Major Tags: assassination, death, introspection, angst  
> Summary: Bucky Barnes has had just about every kind of experience with death that there could possibly be. Except one.  
> Word Count: 850

Bucky Barnes had seen with his own eyes just about every perspective of death that there could be.

As a child, he’d attended the funeral of his grandfather, a man he didn’t know very well and therefore didn't really miss or mourn. But he had watched as his Ma cried in the church, and a lot of other people too. He wasn’t really sure why they were so sad, didn’t understand most of that day. But he had held his Ma’s hand, and even though he was almost seven, getting too big for that kind of thing, he let her hold him in her lap and kiss his cheek.

He’d been a young adult when Sarah Rogers had died, and it was the first death that hit him personally. He had known Mrs. Rogers, liked her a lot, she was a second ma to him in a lot of ways. But even more than that, he had hated the way Steve struggled with it, with the enormous loss of the only family in the world that he had left. Steve never broke, never backed down, never wanted to accept help from anyone. But he’d cried the night his ma died, and Bucky had been right there, holding him tight, promising him that things would turn out okay.

In the war, Bucky saw so very much death. He saw it all around him, every day. His own buddies, soldiers he knew, dropping like flies. Alive one moment, gone the next. He killed his own fair share, too, and sometimes he looked them in the eye before he killed them. Soldiers that looked… just like him. Same scared faces, same grim determination. Just wearing different clothes. Other times, they never knew what killed them, as he sat in his sniper’s nest some distance away. They never even heard the bullet coming before their lives were over at Bucky's hands.

For awhile, when he’d been taken away to Zola, he’d been sure that death had finally come for him. He’d spent so much time strapped to a table, being tortured endlessly, though he recalled little of that time. He remembered the pain. He remembered screaming, begging for death. Death didn’t come to him then.

It didn’t come for him after the train, either, despite the fact that he’d seen that white light just after he hit the ground, after he stopped screaming and reaching for Steve.

He hadn’t died. But… he hadn’t really lived either. Not after what they did to him, what they turned him into.

Another aspect of death was added to his tally.

And every time they sent him on a mission, he became the bringer of death again. Or he taught others how to bring death, in a variety of ways, demonstrating the number of ways a single pair of hands could easily end a life.

In between those times, he slept. A sleep that was a breath away from death. And he wished for death when they woke him, his entire body screaming with the pain of coming alive again. He wished that instead they might finally allow him to slip away into death’s arms. 

Peace waited there. And end to it all. No more pain.

And in the tiny, tiny part of himself that they couldn’t manage to wipe away no matter how they tried, Bucky envied every life that he watched his own hands snuff out.

* * *

Another mission. Another photograph, showing another life that the Asset was in charge of ending. Another span of hours spent lying in wait, on the top of a skyscraper in the freezing cold, watching the target through the scope of a rifle.

Somewhere in the back of the Asset’s mind, locked away in a cage made of gray matter, scars, and electricity, Bucky Barnes watched through eyes that had once been his own.

 _“Don’t worry,”_ He whispered in the prison of his mind, watching the man through the scope as the Asset breathed slowly, waiting for that perfect shot to line up. _“Don’t be scared. Dyin’ ain’t so bad.”_

He would know. He’d died once before. Almost.

The woman, though, the other one in the apartment that smiled at the target, had kissed him and laughed at something he said. Bucky's heart broke for her.

Because death itself might not be so bad. That much was true.

But being the one left behind? That was the worst hell Bucky could possibly imagine.

At last, the moment came, and without knowing it the target had put himself in the perfect position. The shot lined up, and the Asset's heart quickened, his focus sharpening as his finger tightened on the trigger.

Bucky couldn’t close his eyes, it wasn’t possible, the Asset’s eyes were his. But Bucky was able to stop watching. Drawing close into whatever was left of himself, Bucky didn’t watch when the Asset’s finger squeezed the trigger and delivered death to his unsuspecting victim.

 _"Sleep tight,"_ he murmured, almost certain that over the sounds of the city and the Asset breaking down the rifle… he could hear the woman screaming.


End file.
